Mary had a moment only in which to make up her mind. Two courses were open to her. She could jump the ditch, scramble through the hedge and run for it across the fields, or stay where she was and accept capture. To do the former was to proclaim that she had deliberately set out to escape, whereas if she did not take to her heels she might still bluff it out.
Had he pulled up behind her she might have reached the cottage before he could catch her, but to do so from where she stood she would have to pass him. She could still get to it by making a detour through the hedge and round to its back, by way of the field, but, if she did succeed in outrunning him to it, there might not be anyone there to whom she could appeal for help. Realising the small start she would have and the huge stride that his long legs would give him, with bitter reluctance she decided to stay where she was.
In a succession of violent swerves he backed the car until it came level with her, then demanded: ‘Where in heck d’you think you’re going?’
‘To the village,’ she replied, concealing her anger and disappointment with a nervous smile.
‘For why?’ His black eyes were glittering and his voice terse.
Defensively she retorted, ‘What do you think? To buy a few things, of course. It’s all very well for you; you’ve everything you want in the house. But I haven’t even a toothbrush of my own, or make-up things; except for the powder compact and lipstick in my bag. If I’m to stay with you I don’t mean to be reduced to looking like a drab.’
‘You’ve gotta tongue. You should have used it, and I’d have had them gotten for you. I said you were to stay put, didn’t I?’
‘You’ve no need to worry. I specially chose the quietest hour of the day when no one was about. Except for two labourers in a field I haven’t seen a soul.’
‘You would have, if you’d made the village. A quarter of an hour back I had a hunch you’d quit the maison so I did a quick overlook and saw you beating it along the road. Get in.’
There was no alternative; so she got in and in stony silence he drove her back to the house. Following her in he waved a great hand towards the stairs and said: ‘Get on up to the Schlafzimmer.’
Now pale with apprehension as she wondered what he meant to do with her, she went up to the bedroom. Two minutes later he joned her there carrying a largish square box covered with imitation leather. Setting it down on a chair he scowled at her and snapped, ‘Get your clothes off.’
With mounting terror she obeyed; then, trembling a little as she stood in front of him, she began to stutter further excuses.
Ignoring them he suddenly shot out a hand. At the level of his own shoulder his outspread fingers ploughed through her hair. Suddenly they closed, so that the hair they grasped became a thick fistful. With a violent gesture he flung her sideways. She staggered and would have fallen but he wrenched her back. At the tug on her hair she let out a scream of pain. Grabbing at his wrist she strove to free herself but his grip was fast. Still holding her by the hair he flung her first to one side then the other, let her fall to her knees then jerked her upright, let her fall again, then dragged her screaming half across the room and back.
Releasing her and stepping away, he said: ‘Treatment number one for judys who disobey orders in the red-light dives. Way up on beatings. Doesn’t mark ‘em and spoil their appearance for the customers. There’s treatments two and three. Best not go walking again, honey. Get into bed and stay there. I’ll be seeing you.’
As he turned on his heel and left her, she collapsed on the bed. The hair on her forehead was wet with sweat and the top of her head one terrible ache where for several moments her scalp had had to take the weight of her whole body. After a while, still sobbing, she crept between the sheets and lay there in abject misery for what seemed an endless time.
Actually it was about two hours, then the door opened and he came in again. Putting down a big parcel he had with him, he leant over her and said abruptly, ‘Sit up.’
‘You brute!’ she flared, cowering further away from him under the bedclothes.
‘Sit up,’ he repeated. ‘I’ll not hurt you this time.’
Doubting him, but not daring to refuse, she levered herself up into a sitting position. Her head was still aching intolerably where the hair had been almost torn from it, but when she instinctively put up her hands to defend herself, he took them both and pushed them down to her sides.
‘Not a move, now,’ he ordered. Then, while muttering some gibberish under his breath, with the index finger of his left hand he made the sign of the reversed swastika on the top of her head. As though by magic – and, indeed, it was by magic – the pain eased then faded away completely.
‘Thanks,’ she sighed, her eyes wide with wonder. ‘Oh, thank you! But why did you have to be so brutal?’
‘Teach you not to try to run out on me.’
‘I wasn’t,’ she lied.
‘Can that! I know you were. I picked it up from your vibrations. What’s been eating you? You get plenty kick out of being my squaw, don’t you?’
Knowing she must humour him, she raised a smile. ‘Yes, of course, lots. You are a wonderful lover.’
‘Then why the yen to quit?’
Swiftly she searched her mind for some reason that would sound plausible, yet not offend or make him angry. After a moment inspiration came to her, and she hedged. ‘I didn’t want to really. It was not until I was walking along the road that the idea suddenly came into my head. You see, I’d been looking forward tremendously to my initiation and on Saturday night, but for you, I’d have been made a Sister of the Ram. Don’t think I’m not grateful to you for having saved me from that beast Ratnadatta. I am. But I do want to be intiated and I can’t be until I’m back in London. I felt sure you wouldn’t be willing to let me go; so I was toying with the idea of going while I had the chance. That was the thought wave of mine that you must have picked up.’
‘Well, now,’ he smiled, ‘so that’s how it was. Why in heck didn’t you say so then, instead of giving me all that gup about wanting to buy beauty-parlour goods?’
‘But I did want to. That’s all I started out to do.’
Turning away, he picked up the parcel, threw it on the bed and said: Take a look at that lot. Dames I’ve had here as houseguests before have known they were coming and brought their own muck. I oughta have realised you were shy of all the aids.’
Evidently he must have gone into Cambridge as the parcel contained a variety of the most expensive creams, lotions, powders, shampoos and scents, which could never have come from a village shop. As she thanked him for this generous present he said: ‘I don’t go for nightwear, either for myself or dames, but you’ll want undies, nylons, mules and frocks. Just jot down the old vital statistics for me tomorrow and you can have all you wish.’
She thanked him again and while she was still examining the packets and bottles he went on thoughtfully, ‘’Bout your initiation. You don’t have to go to London for that. I run a Lodge for some of my airforce boys down here. It’s only if happen I’m in London on leave, or for top ceremonies, that I check in with old Abaddon’s crowd. Most Saturdays I do High Priest for my own set up. And I’ve this forfeit on my neck. That entails a sacrifice. Seeing you’re so set on losing no time in becoming a Sister, I guess I’ll make my blood offering come Saturday and initiate you myself.’
Her heart sank at his words, and sank still further as he added in a slightly reluctant tone, ‘It’ll mean loaning you for a while to some of my boys, but there’s no avoiding that. Still, wouldn’t be right for me to stand in your way of becoming a full-blown witch. I’ll get a pay-off afterwards, though. You’ll be qualified to act as my assistant in some private magics I’ve a mind to undertake. Two members of the cult always get better results than one.’
Avoiding his eyes she continued to finger the bottles, miserably conscious that she had again overplayed her hand, and so now had fresh cause for dread. She could only pray that before Saturday some unforeseen occurrence would enable her to escape the threatened ordeal.
The evening and night they passed together differed very little from that which had preceded it but, in the morning when they were called, before going into the bathroom he pressed a switch at the side of the square black box he had brought up to the bedroom the previous afternoon. Mary was still dozing when his voice issued from the box. Harshly it commanded: ‘Get your clothes off!’
Sitting up she stared at it. She had heard of, but never seen, a tape recorder. As she listened she realised that that was what the box must be and that it was now playing back the sounds it had registered in the room while she had been receiving punishment for her attempt to escape. She heard again her own terrible screams and pleas for mercy, then his voice again, followed by her moans and sobs as she had collapsed upon the bed. The sounds brought flooding back to her the memory of the agony she had suffered, and she shuddered afresh.
When he returned from his shower, he grinned at her and said: ‘Just a reminder, honey. Don’t try anything you wouldn’t like me to know about while I’m on the job today.’
‘I won’t,’ she assured him quickly. ‘I’ve no wish to leave here. I’m enjoying every moment of it.’
‘Some moments,’ he agreed, his grin becoming a little twisted. ‘But yesterday evening I had a feeling that you’d something on your mind. A looker like you couldn’t have been running solo before I snatched you. Maybe it’s that you’ve a boy-friend in London that you’re getting boiled up to be back with. Guess I’d better fix you proper, so you won’t land yourself in no more pain and grief.’
Coming over to her he took her face between his two great hands. His eyes held her like magnets for a minute, then they seemed to grow very large and she heard him say: ‘Repeat after me, “I’ll not put a foot outside this house except with that big bastard Wash”.’
Steeling herself to appear willing, she said the words not once but, at his order, three times; then he released her.
Later in the day she resolved to test the strength of the spell he had put upon her. Having waited until Jim was out of the way she went to a door at the far end of the hall that led to the garden. Opening it she looked out across a lawn to a group of trees; then she told herself that she was going to walk over to them. But she could not. The hypnotic suggestion that he had implanted in her mind held her fast. Strive as she would she could not lift a foot to step out over the door sill.
In the hall there was a telephone and it had extensions in both the sitting-room and the bedroom. She had already thought of trying to get through by one of them to Colonel Verney, and now she considered that possibility again. She actually got as far as lifting the receiver in the sitting-room, but as the dialling tone sounded quickly put it down again. Since her absent captor had so swiftly and accurately become aware of her intentions the previous afternoon it seemed certain that his highly developed psychic sense would again warn him that she was about to betray him. She was no longer capable of even leaving the house. If he returned imbued with the belief that she had been endeavouring to bring about his arrest it was quite on the cards that he might kill her. The risk was too great to take.
She then searched the room for a book in the hope that it would take her mind off her wretched situation, but apparently the telephone directory was the only book in the house. Too depressed even to listen to the radio, for the remainder of the afternoon she abandoned herself to miserable forebodings about the next stages of this seemingly bottomless pit of afflictions into which, by her own actions, she had plunged herself.
Her gargantuan host returned much later than he had the day before, and the reason for his lateness was apparent when he had Iziah – a third servant boy who did the rough work and serviced his car – bring in a great pile of cardboard boxes. They contained at least a hundred pounds’ worth of lingerie and as Mary inspected it, being human, she could not help feeling temporarily cheered up.
Confronted with this sort of thing she found it impossible to hate Wash wholeheartedly, and felt more than ever that, as he attracted her physically, she must endeavour to put all other thoughts about him out of her mind, and play up to him in the hope that when she had spent a few more nights with him he might relax his restriction on her leaving the house, or tire of her and send her back to London.
It was next day, Wednesday, that in the evening they talked for quite a while about the H-bomb and the chances of a Third World War. The subject arose through her having asked him what type of planes he had at his Station and his telling her that he commanded a squadron of giant bombers that could carry enough nuclear explosive in one mission to blow the whole of Moscow off the map.
‘Should it ever have to be, let’s hope they don’t blow us off the map first,’ she commented.
‘No fear of that,’ he asserted. ‘Leastways, not unless some guy on their side goes crackers.’
‘If your right about that we’ve little need to fear an atomic war at all, then.’
‘I wouldn’t say that. Time may come when Uncle Sam decides to pull a fast one.’
She stared at him in amazement. ‘Surely you don’t mean that America would ever attack Russia without warning?’
‘Could be,’ he shrugged. ‘Got to be realistic. Take a look at the world situation. For years past now the Soviet’s been beating us to it all along the line. Uncle Sam’s policy of shelling out dollars to sitters on the fence has got him nowhere. Blacks, browns, yellows take our money with one hand and aircraft, tanks and guns from the Kremlin with the other. Meantime Soviet agents and their buddies in these Afro-Asian countries riddle their administrations like maggots in a cheese. Whenever it suits, the boys in Moscow pull a string and one of these little nations blows up. The Great Panjandorum and the feudal types, who’ve been playing along with the West so as to keep their hooks on their bank rolls, are bumped; and there’s another chunk of territory in the Communists’ bag. The ring’s closing all the time, and as it closes the West is losing markets. The Kremlin can put the black on the countries its nominees control to buy Russian. Add to that Soviet production being on the up-and-up, and their labour only what they’ve a mind to pay it, they’ll soon be pricing us out of Europe and Latin America. And there’s one thing folk back home won’t stand for. That’s reduction of their living standard. What’s the answer. Ask yourself?’
Mary shook her head. ‘I don’t believe any United States Government would ever launch a world war without provocation.’
‘Provocation huh! They’ll have plenty. The Kremlin hands it out every day. And democratic Governments aren’t free agents. The White House is under pressure from our industrial tycoons all the time. As unemployment mounts they’ll be able to turn the screw. If it comes to war or the bread line they’ll have the ordinary folk behind them. The Russians will find that they’ve played at brinkmanship once too often and the big shots in the Pentagon will be told to press the button. That’s how it might go, and sooner than you think.’
Owing to the circumstances in which Wash had come upon Mary he had from the beginning accepted her as a Satanist, and she had, ever since, been careful to maintain that illusion in his mind; so for the past three days during all their talks they had treated every subject from that point of view. Speaking from that angle now she said:
‘If either side launched a surprise attack I should have thought it much more likely to be the Russians. We know that the old religion is making use of Communism, because it aims to destroy the Governments and false religions of the West. Isn’t it quite a possibility that the Brothers of the Ram in Moscow might influence the men in the Kremlin into going to war with the idea of putting an end to the Christian heresy for good?’
He smiled at her. ‘You’ve got it all wrong, honey. There’s Communism and Communism. The sort that’s outside the Iron Curtain is the genuine old Marxist goods, and useful to us. But not the Soviet brand. The boys in the Kremlin threw true Communism down the drain years ago. Take a look at what’s been happening there. No more free love but a big build-up for family life. Go to church if you want to. Cut down the drink, or else. A new bourgeois society with all the old taboos. The guys at the top aren’t going to risk the good time they’re having for the sake of going crusading in Europe. They’re reckoning on getting the whole works without. I’ve told you how, honey. Giving the impression that the Cold War is over and they really want to be friends, taking over wherever we stop paying out, industrial sabotage and using sweated labour to undersell us. I’m telling you, unless Uncle Sam blots Russia first it’ll be the only country worth living in ten years hence.’
‘We are always told here that the American people are scared stiff at the idea of an atomic war. And so are we for that matter. Anyhow, it would end in the whole world going up in flames; so however bad unemployment in the States becomes, I can’t see them urging their Government to let them commit suicide.’
‘They wouldn’t do that. Not consciously. The danger is things could get so bad there’d be a threat of revolution. Rather than face that the Government might plunk for taking a big gamble. All I’m telling you is that economics might push the U.S. into pulling the trigger, whereas the Soviets are getting more prosperous all the time. They’re as scared of starting anything as we are, and they’ve more to lose. They’ve only to go on playing it the way they are to get Europe’s cities, ports and industries as going concerns. They’d be plumb crazy to reduce them to heaps of ruins.’
‘Then why is it that all these conferences about doing away with nuclear weapons have never got further than nibbling at the problem of preventing an atomic war? If what you say is right surely the Russians should be only too anxious for both sides to scrap everything, then they would have a free field to go on with their peaceful penetration without any risk of the United States suddenly banging off at them?’
‘Sure; sure, honey; and they are. They’ve offered again and again to go the whole way; but they’re not such Dummkops as to agree to half measures. And the West digs its toes in at the idea of packing up the great deterrent altogether, because the Soviets hold the bigger stick where conventional forces are concerned. That’s the deadlock, and the Russians would put out the biggest ever red carpet for anyone who would break it for them.’
‘It seems an impasse out of which there is no way.’
‘Oh, there is a way. I could do it myself if I wanted.’
‘You can’t mean that,’ Mary said with a smile, feeling certain that he was either pulling her leg or making an absurd boast to impress her. ‘How could you possibly change the views of all the leading statesmen of the Western Powers?’
‘By dropping just one egg in Europe. Vague ideas are one thing; seeing is another. Headlines, radio, eye-witness reports, T.V., documentaries on the flicks. All the horror of an H-bomb bang brought fresh from the scene right into every home in the N.A.T.O. countries. Just think of the pressure there’d be on their Governments. Millions of women blowing their tops, voters of all shades shouting “It mustn’t happen here”, demonstrations, strikes, threats to Cabinet Ministers. And as I was telling you a while back, democratic Governments aren’t free agents. They’d have no option. None at all. They’d be pushed into making a pact with the Soviets to scrap all nuclear weapons and make no more.’
‘Really, Wash!’ Mary protested. ‘It’s you who are off the mark this time. Apart from doing such a terrible thing as dropping a bomb out of the blue that would kill or maim countless innocent people, can’t you see that in whichever N.A.T.O. country it fell everyone would immediately assume that the Russians had opened hostilities. Within minutes your squadron and everything else we’ve got would be on the way to Russia; and in no time the Russians would be fighting back. Such an act could only precipitate a general blow-up.’
He gave her an amused look. ‘I didn’t say drop it in a N.A.T.O. country, honey. I said Europe, and there’s still neutrals. Say we put one down in Switzerland, both sides would hold their hands. They’d sit tight, batting their heads who done it, and why. Meantime, the camera boys would be having a red-letter day; pictures and films would be getting around and the demonstrations starting.’
‘I see. Yes; I suppose you’re right. But think of the poor Swiss. As far as they are concerned it would be cold-blooded mass murder.’
‘Seeing they stayed at home in both world wars they’re about due for a token blood letting,’ he replied callously. ‘Besides, if the egg were dropped among those mountains its effects would be localised. A small town or two, some villages, a few thousand yodellers and tourists would take the rap; but that’d be no price at all to pay if it deprived the East and the West of the power to blow one another to pieces.’
‘Looked at that way,’ Mary admitted after a moment, ‘perhaps there would be a case for martyring several thousand people. After all, hundreds of thousands were massacred by the Nazis with no benefit to anyone. Perhaps if one could definitely save all the great cities of Europe and America, and the millions and millions of people who live in them from a terrible death, it would be justifiable. All the same, to kill men, women and children en-masse like that would be an awful thing to do.’
‘I’ve no inhibitions about killing,’ he asserted cheerfully. ‘And remember, if the two big boys do get to pulling their guns there’ll be mighty little left in the world that’ll be worth having. Those of us who aren’t disintegrated instanter or scheduled to stagger around for a few days, without teeth and our hair dropped out, will be left pretty near where you Anglo-Saxons started. For a generation or two maybe worse; anyway, for a time it’s certain to be as simple as dog eat dog.’
Mary sighed. ‘What a gloomy picture! And it doesn’t seem that your imaginative idea for preventing an atomic war would lead in the long run to a situation that was much better. It would simply open the gate for the Russians to walk in.’
‘Sure, but wouldn’t that be better than death or going back to nature?’
‘I’m not certain that it would.’
‘It certainly would for ninety per cent of the folk who make up the population of the Western Powers. The other ten would be for the high jump or Siberia, but that’s their funeral.’
‘As an Air Force Colonel you’d be among them.’
‘Not me, honey. As a servant of the Lord of this World I’ve an international ticket to the easy life in any country. That would go for you too. The Brothers of the Ram would see to it that little Sister Circe didn’t lack for potatoes.’
She gave him a smile. ‘Well, if it ever looks like happening, that will be nice to know. You seem to have forgotten one thing, though. This career you’re so keen on would be finished; that is, unless you could get yourself taken on in the Soviet Air Force.’
‘My career’s finished anyhow, I’m on my way out now.’ He spoke with such sudden bitterness that she momentarily felt a touch of sympathy for him, and said:
‘I’m sorry, Wash. But why? I understood from what you told me that only the very best men were given command of these squadrons of big bombers that are right in the front line and all ready to go.’
‘That’s so, honey.’
‘Then why shouldn’t you become a General? Have you blotted your copybook in some way?’
‘No, there’s not a thing against me on the record. It’s just that war-plane flying is finished. The rocket guys are taking over, and fast. They’re making no more big bombers, or fighters; the types in service now are the last. In a year or two my beauties will go in the ash can, and I’ll be out on my ear.’
‘You will still have lots of money.’
‘Yeah. But dollars aren’t everything. I’ve ambition; and though I’ll have to start again, some way yet I mean to make myself a big shot.’
The following afternoon when he got back from the base there was a letter waiting for him. For some time after he had read it he remained plunged deep in thought, then he said to her:
‘You’ll recall how I was nattering last night about the U.S.A.A.F. putting me on the pension list come a year or two’s time. I’ve been throwing out lines for a future, and one of them’s matured sooner than I thought. From Saturday I’ll have to take some leave, on that account.’
Mary hid her sudden elation. It looked from what he said as if in another forty-eight hours she might be freed by him and, even greater blessing, escape the initiation which she so much dreaded. Endeavouring to appear disappointed, she said:
‘In that case you won’t be able to make me a full witch on Saturday night.’
He gave her a reassuring smile. ‘Don’t fret yourself, honey. I don’t mean to miss out on the Esbbat. I got to hold that so as to pull down more power to myself for the new deal I’m set on making. Besides, there’s the forfeit I’ve got to ante up for cutting loose on Walpurgis Eve.’
Concealing the blow her hopes had sustained, she asked:
‘What form does it take?’
‘Human blood,’ he replied, and went on with a callousness that appalled her, ‘Back in the States there are plenty of coloured folks who’ll trade a child for fifty bucks, and the Lodges in the South sends them up on mail order. But here snatching kids is apt to mean trouble. It’ll have to be one of the floosies who hang around the camp. There are scores of them, and I’ll rope one in tomorrow night.’
Mary had gone dead white. After a moment she said in a low voice:
‘Would you … would you please mix me a drink; a … a stiff one.’
‘Sure, honey.’ Levering himself up to his enormous height from the armchair in which he had been lounging, he stepped over to the cocktail cabinet. ‘Idea of human sacrifice still gives you the willies, eh?’
‘I … I’m not used to it yet. Not… not being an initiate I’ve never seen one. But aren’t you afraid that the police might trace the girl?’
That’s about as likely as me peddling peanuts on the moon. There’s thousands of young dolls go missing in Britain every year. Most of them just quit home because they’re fed up with handing in their pay packets to their mommas, or because they’ve got hot pants for some married man. Mighty few of them are ever traced, and if some get in bad with a guy who gives them a passport for the golden shore there’s no one to start a hue and cry after him. These teenage harpies who claw the dough outta my boys’ wallets aren’t local girls either. Leastways, precious few of them. They’re East-end bitches down from London; so if there’s one less come Sunday morning who’s to worry?’
Taking the Bourbon on the Rocks that he handed her, Mary gulped some of it, drew a deep breath, and asked, ‘Do the Brotherhood often offer up human sacrifice?’
‘There’s no fixed rule. One time it’s same as now, an adept having to put himself in the clear after a lapse; another it’s to celebrate the induction of a new High Priest. Times are when it’s done with some special intention – maybe a Brother or Sister wanting a relative to make a quick exit, so they can get their hands on some lolly, or skip a divorce. Then once in a while some Lodge finds its secrets are being betrayed. Soon as the traitor is caught out there’s an atonement ceremony in which he or she is the victim. That was the case with the last human whose blood I saw offered up.’
Mary’s heart stopped for a second. A sudden paralysis seemed to run through all her limbs. With a great effort she raised the glass and took another quick drink. The strong spirit, hardly yet diluted at all by the ice cubes, seemed to burn in her chest, but it again sent her circulation racing, and enabled her to get out the question, ‘How long ago was that?’
‘Bit over two months. This guy was a police-spy. Someone tumbled to it that he was taking photographs of the Temple with a mini-camera. Under some pretext old Abaddon gave him deep hypnosis and dredged him clean, then sent him off to collect all the notes he had taken. There was enough dynamite in them to have blown the whole Lodge sky high. Seems he was only waiting for info’ about when the Great Ram meant to officiate there again to fix for the place to be raided. Leastways, that’s the story as Abaddon gave it to me. I was only in on the ritual killing.’
Wash was mixing himself a Vodka Martini and had his back to Mary so while he was talking he did not see the horror in her eyes. She knew that he must be speaking of Teddy. The date tallied so it could be no one else. When she had least expected it she had reached the end of her self-imposed quest. It was possible that Ratnadatta might only have played the jackal, and made off with the victim’s shoes, but she was now hearing about his murder from a man who had actually witnessed it. She heard her voice, as if coming from a great distance, say, ‘What did they do to him?’
‘Oh, there’s a special drill for dealing with initiates who become apostates. Assumption is they’ve gone back to the Christian heresy; so we give ‘em the treatment same as J C. got for getting up against Our Lord Satan in Palestine. Only difference is we have to cut their throats so the blood’ll run, and for convenience sake we crucify them upside down.’
Mary set down her glass, lurched to her feet and, with a strangled sob, ran from the room.
Half an hour later she returned to find him working at his desk. Looking up, he said casually, ‘Bit strong meat for you, eh, honey? But you asked for it, and that was just as well. If you’re going to be a good witch you’ve got to get acquainted with what goes on, and be prepared to stand in at any sort of ceremony. Play the radio now if you want, but set it on a musical programme. I can’t abide canned voices while I’m working.’
In due course he bulldozed his way through the usual abundant evening meal, washing it down with copious draughts of cider laced with calvados, which seemed to have no effect upon him. Ghastly pictures flickering about in Mary’s mind robbed her of all appetite, but she made a game pretence of eating; and his mind was obviously on other things, as he made no comment.
Afterwards, he returned to work and she put on some gramophone records. About ten o’clock he broke off to mix himself a long drink, and said: ‘You get up to bed any time you feel that way, honey. If I’m to take leave from Saturday I’ve a whole heap of things need clearing up, so I’ll be at it here for hours yet.’
Gladly she accepted the suggestion and cried herself to sleep. She woke when he came up but to her immense relief he did not disturb her, and soon after he had settled down she drifted off again.
Next morning her mind was more than ever harassed by fears, half-formed plans and nervous speculations. Somehow, while she had the chance, she must get from him a full account of Teddy’s murder, so that details about those who had taken part in it could be made to stick.
Then, what of her future? How could she find some means of escaping this loathsome initiation ceremony? And what did he intend to do with her after Saturday? Presumably he would take her to London with him; but did he mean to let her go when they got there? She had not dared to ask him. At least if it was his intention to retain her as his mistress during his leave, she would stand a better chance of escaping from him after they had left the house.
Last, but by no means least, there was this new development of the human sacrifice he intended to make. The victim was to be chosen by chance from the scores of vicious little sluts who battened like lice on the well-paid American servicemen. But however unprincipled and depraved she might be she had a right to her life. How could this unknown be saved from the awful end that menaced her?